Review: ‘Beats of the Antonov’ Examines Sudan’s Civil Wars

In a recent series of opinion columns filed from the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times decried the lack of attention paid to the Sudanese government’s brutal daily bombing of its own people. As if in response, on Monday PBS’s “POV” documentary series presents “Beats of the Antonov,” a film shot on the front lines of Sudan’s continuing civil wars.

The title of the movie, directed by Hajooj Kuka, refers to one of the types of airplane that the Khartoum government uses to drop bombs on villages in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, regions where an armed rebellion endures a decade after the peace agreement that led to the creation of the neighboring nation South Sudan.

One thread of the film is an up-close look at that violence, filmed with evident courage, even rashness, by Mr. Kuka. His camera thrashes about as he dives into foxholes, and shudders as bombs detonate nearby. He also films in the midst of what appears to be an intense firefight involving an independent unit of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (although the enemy, presumably Sudanese government troops, isn’t seen).

But the spirit of the film lies elsewhere, taking it in the direction of agitprop, which is slightly less interesting cinematically, even though it’s in the service of a good cause and is perhaps, from Mr. Kuka’s point of view, necessary. Copious interviews frame the Sudanese wars as battles over cultural identity, with the Arabic northern government intent on wiping out the African culture of the southern regions. Officers of the Liberation Army units, an offshoot of the national army in South Sudan, which has its own record of human-rights abuses, are presented as earnest revolutionaries.

The film eventually delivers a hopeful message (Mr. Kuka doesn’t forcefully address some aspects of the southern people’s desperate situation, like famine and disease) and its main vehicle for this is music as an expression of unity and resilience, hence “Beats” in the title. A significant portion simply presents people singing and dancing, and while the value of these scenes to the narrative is debatable, they always hold your attention. Particularly mesmerizing is a snippet of “girls’ music,” in which young refugee women make up lyrics to popular tunes: “The ambulance ride bumped me around/ Oh, how wonderful is love/ Searching for my peace of mind/ Oh, how wonderful is love.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C3 of the New York edition with the headline: Lives Caught in Sudan’s Enduring Civil Wars. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe